Thursday, March 02, 2006

James Forsyth has an interesting editorial in this week’s The Business in which he explains why the British Foreign Secretary is shattering any hope of convincing Iran of giving up it’s nuclear arms ambitions:

To stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the West must convince the authorities in Tehran that it is prepared to use force. But one politician keeps getting in the way of this strategy and making it seem that force would never be even an option: Jack Straw, the UK Foreign Secretary, whose words keep reassuring the Iranians that they can do whatever they want.In recent weeks, there have been signs that Tehran was beginning to worry about a military strike.[…]Straw, though, seems intent on soothing jangled Iranian nerves. In a recent interview with the BBC Persian service he all but dismissed the prospect of military action. “You know what I’ve said about that,” he barked. Sadly, we do. On 28 January, as Iran was rejecting warnings about restarting its nuclear programme, Straw announced: “There isn’t a military option.”[…]“It doesn’t make any sense to rule out an option that provides you with some degree of leverage in negotiations. That’s just a basic rule of negotiation even if you never have any intention of using it,” says Jeremy Shapiro, a fellow at the centrist Brookings Institution.[…]What’s behind Straw’s unhelpful outbursts? The answer is internal Labour Party politics. Straw knows that being foreign secretary during the Iraq war hurt his standing in the party and will hurt him even more in the post-Blair era. He needs to contain the damage and his grandstanding on Iran combined with glimpses of his reservations about the Iraq war play well with the Labour base. He also has a keen eye on his shrinking majority in his Blackburn constituency, where over a quarter of the electorate is Muslim.

Do read the whole thing. He concludes that Blair should get rid of him, and I agree. The political game Jack Straw is playing is very dangerous and quite despicable. I am convinced that if all Western powers had unequivocally and forcefully threatened Saddam Hussein with military action in 2003 the chance of an actual invasion taking place would have been greatly reduced. It is this (mostly European) attitude, which always opposes the dirty but necessary work - even when done by somebody else - that gave Saddam the (thankfully false) impression that he could get away with anything. Shame on Jack Straw for putting us in a weaker negotiating position with Iran for his personal political gain.

Favourite Quotes

"To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French." Mark Twain: Concerning The Jews, Harper's Magazine, March 1898

"This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put." Winston Churchill: Pencilled in the margin of a minute issued by a civil servant who was objecting to the ending of a sentence with a preposition and the use of a dangling participle in official documents.

"To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning!" Margaret Thatcher: Conservative Party conference speech, Brighton, 10 October 1980

"Who was that lad they used to try to make me read at Oxford? Ship- Shop- Schopenhauer. That’s the name. A grouch of the most pronounced description." P. G. Wodehouse: Carry On, Jeeves – Clustering Round Young Bingo

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." George Burns

"Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." Winston Churchill: Harrow School speech, 29 October 1941

"The profits of 'protection' go altogether to a few score select persons—who, by favors of Congress, State legislatures, the banks, and other special advantages, are forming a vulgar aristocracy, full as bad as anything in the British or European castes, of blood, or the dynasties there of the past." Walt Whitman: Prose Works, III. Notes Left Over - 11. Who Gets the Plunder?

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Winston Churchill: House of Commons speech on August 20, 1940. (at the peak of the Battle of Britain, referring to the RAF airmen)

"And who knows? Somewhere out in this audience may even be someone who will one day follow in my footsteps, and preside over the White House as the President's spouse – and I wish him well." Barbara Bush: Wellesley College commencement address, 1 June 1990

"We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!" Winston Churchill: House of Commons speech, June 4 1940 (referring to Dunkirk)

"Earnestly hope we shall not have another war with meat-coupons and no sugar and people being killed – ridiculous and unnecessary. Wonder whether Mussolini's mother spanked him too much or too little - you never know, these psychological days." Dorothy Sayers: Busman'sHoneymoon - Diaries of the Dowager Duchess of Denver

"The gunfire around us makes it hard to hear. But the human voice is different from other sounds. It can be heard over noises that bury everything else. Even when it's not shouting. Even when it's just a whisper. Even the lowest whisper can be heard over armies – when it's telling the truth." Sydney Pollack et al.: The Interpreter [2005] (Dedication from the memoirs of Edmond Zuwanie)

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last." Winston Churchill